Edgar Lee Masters, the author of essays, biographies, poems, plays and fiction, was versatile and prolific, but none of his fifty-odd works enjoyed the popularity and acclaim of his Spoon River Anthology, his greatest work. He published the first version of it in 1915, inspired by a weekend filled with reminiscences with his mother in his childhood home of Petersburg, Illinois, located on Spoon River. The original is a collection of poems that present the reflections of the fictional residents of Spoon River, a town patterned after Petersburg. Some of the characters are based on historical figures: Anne Rutledge was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln in the early 1830s. Lucinda Matlock is based on Masters' grandmother, Lucinda Masters. Most of the characters, however, are Masters' imaginative creations. In Spoon River Anthology, Masters presents a wide variety of human experience and creates memorable characters and situations.
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Read the poem and then do an activity about it. If you wish, you can see a biography of Edgar Lee Masters, and also see more poems and other information by/about him. Finally, do some writing yourself and read poems written by another reader.
I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney
Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard,
For I tried the rights of property,
Although by lamp-light, for thirty years,
In that poker room in the opera house.
And I say to you that Life’s a gambler
Head and shoulders above us all.
No mayor alive can close the house.
And if you lose, you can squeal as you will;
You’ll not get back your money.
He makes the percentage hard to conquer;
He stacks the cards to catch your weakness
And not to meet your strength.
And he gives you seventy years to play:
For if you cannot win in seventy
You cannot win at all.
So, if you lose, get out of the room—
Get out of the room when your time is up.
It’s mean to sit and fumble the cards,
And curse your losses, leaden-eyed,
Whining to try and try.
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The Green Clothes
The colourful tips,
The smoke,
The dry lips,
The tired voice, “No more bets”
The hands,
Erratic sights,
Constrained tones,
Mesmerizing lights,
Twenty eight seconds of roulette’s spin
Nervously jigging ball
The clothes are green
Somewhere, in another world,
The ringing of falling coins
and obtrusive melody: “Tu-ru-ru-ruuuu”….
These are very, very far.
His body, glance, nerves,
Brain, space and time are
Condensed in the small ball,
Which is trembling in the circle.
Dryness in the throat. That is all:
Morning, 4:48, emptiness … .
The blazing desire to win back,
To take revenge, to bring back
The nerves, the time, the brain
And all that was spent in vain.
by Gulnara Karimova
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One-Dollar Gambler
I have one dollar to bet on number 13
One dollar for a loaf of bread
With a piece of ham, sandwiched between two slices of tomato.
One dollar for a hot milk tea
Before work time starts.
One dollar for some paper and ink
And some knowledge for a blind man.
One dollar each morning,
One dollar each night and for each brick I laid.
But, I bet one dollar. The counter closed
The next day number 13 appeared
In the middle of my drowsy eyes
On top of my nose
Or somewhere in between the hollowness
Of my empty hands.
I now have zero dollars to bet
Zero dollars for bread, tea, paper, ink and bricks!
Zero dollars, again, for number 13.
by Phan Thi Nam Mai
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either absolute or relative
comparative or superlative
you need compromise to live.
life is love and love is life …
for this short duration
with no rewind or alteration
with only one direction
compromise … to be happy … or sad
for … good … or … for bad …
life is love and love is life …
too short the duration …
with any calculation
whether addition or subtraction …
impossible the alteration …
life is love and love is life
a number … with less than two zeros ... may be the result
or not ... more than one ... as the first digit.
the second … digit …
not more than double of the first …
out of ... rarely three components ...
life is love and love is life ...
for this short duration
with no alteration
I need a better calculation
for efficient ( time) utilization.
life is love and love is life ...
while time is life ...
and ... life is love
both are relatively too short
unwisely to spend.
grebekka
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